Building a website from scratch is a very time-consuming process that requires extensive expertise. To make this process easier, website builder software is available today that offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface. With more than 18 million websites deployed using website builders worldwide, accessibility and user-friendly web design tools have reached an all-time high demand.

Among the biggest players in this space is Canva, which is often recognized for its intuitive design tools. Launched in 2013 by Melanie Perkins, Cameron Adams, and Cliff Obrecht in Australia, Canva has transformed from a graphic design tool into a versatile platform with website-building capabilities. Its meteoric rise can be seen in growth, boasting 130 million active users in 2024, a leap from 60 million in 2022.

Let’s look at Canva's features and how easy it is to set up a website. We will also understand different pricing plans and templates, along with a detailed review of Canva. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced designer, this article will help you create a website with ease to establish a strong digital presence.

Key Features of Canva Website Builder

A user-friendly interface combined with powerful design tools makes Canva a simple website builder and a good option for setting up your first website. Its modern features attract those who want it simple.

1. Built-in Analytics Tool

The website builder automatically includes a native analytics tool that monitors the website's performance, traffic, and visitors' activity. The tool allows more performance monitoring regarding improvements in the website's engagement and visibility.

2. Access to Canva’s Photos and Design Elements

Users automatically have access to Canva's extensive library of images, graphics, and template designs. This integration makes your site look professional and beautiful without the need for external third-party applications.

3. Color Palette Generator

Canva makes branding easy through a colour palette generator that provides suitable colour combinations based on your input. This helps you ensure that your designs are consistent and visually appealing while conveying your brand message.

4. Magic Write Tool for Website Copy

Magic Write is a feature in Canva. It uses Artificial Intelligence to guide you in making compelling copies for your website. From captivating headlines to convincing descriptions, this tool assists you in saving time and creating remarkable content.

5. Drag-and-Drop Editor

Canva provides an intuitive drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to customize the layout and elements and add pages. This ensures a smooth design experience, even for beginners.

Key Reasons to Choose Canva Website Builder 

Canva is one of the popular website builders offering unparalleled simplicity with creativity. Any user can easily build visually appelaing websites with ease. Here are three reasons why Canva website builder became so popular:

1. Build Unique and Creative Websites

Canva enables end-users to develop completely responsive, beautiful, and unique sites.

• Professional Templates: Choose a theme and one-page website template from a professional, free template optimized to fit any screen size or device. Use these templates to create the kinds of websites you need, such as portfolios, classroom updates, and more.
• Effortless Collaboration: Collaborate with your team in real time by inviting others to edit or provide feedback. The drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to customize every element, from text to animations, creating an engaging website quickly.
• AI-Powered Creativity: Use Canva’s AI photo editor to enhance images or create custom visuals with Magic Media. This feature ensures your website stands out with visually appealing and unique designs.

2. Be Your Web Designer

Using Canva, you can design a highly professional-looking website that resembles the identity of your brand.

• Brand Customization: The Brand Kit allows you to easily add your logo, typefaces, and colour palette to your website. This achieves consistency and increases the appeal of the brand.
• Enriched Media Integration: Add lively elements like Bitmojis, Giphy animations, and more right from Canva apps or your existing media library.
• Domain Options: You can publish your website with a free my. canvas.site subdomain or purchase a custom domain and connect it. Canva also features hosting, SSL certification, and privacy protection as a packaged web solution.

3. Expand Your Reach and Protect Your Work

After creating websites, Canva has so much more to do in terms of optimizing, protecting, and finally promoting your online presence.

• Traffic Insights: With Canvas in-built Websites Insights, you can monitor visitor engagement and traffic without requiring separate analytics tools.
• Privacy Features: You can use password-protected sites for private collaborative work or confidential communication.
• Marketing Material: Promote your business by creating branded flyers, posters, and business cards that complement your online presence. Canva’s print services will then deliver these to your doorstep.

Choosing Canva means embracing a website-creation platform that's very simple yet powerful for creating your first website or a landing page.

Steps to Build a One-Page Website with Canva

Canva is a very simple and creative tool that is perfect for anybody new to website design. The intuitive interface makes Canva quite versatile for professionals and a beginner alike, with access to thousands of design elements and drag-and-drop tools. Follow these steps to bring your website to life with Canva:

1. Search for ‘Website’ in Canva

Open your Canva account and click on the search icon to search for "Website". Scroll through the wide range of templates on page one and select one you like. Canva offers many ready-to-use website layouts that are great for small website or landing page requirements, such as portfolios, resumes, team sites, and more. Alternatively, you can begin with a blank template and edit all its elements yourself.

2. Select and Customize Your Website Template

After choosing a layout, add graphics, images, charts, or videos to make it uniquely yours. Canva's huge library includes free illustrations, stock photos, and other goodies to illuminate your design. A drag-and-drop editor allows you to customize fonts, colours, and styles effortlessly.

3. Collaborate on Your Website Design

Teamwork is seamless on Canva. You can access a draft of your design from the dashboard through a link with collaborators. This is great for brainstorming, getting feedback, or using it as a collaborative effort to refine your website. Everyone can edit or comment in real time for a cohesive final product.

4. Preview Before Publishing

Preview on all devices: Before broadcasting, check the preview on mobile phones, desktop computers, and tablets to ensure that the design will look good on all available devices. Then, make a final check on layout, information readability, and overall aesthetics.

5. Publish Your Website

Once you're happy with your content, it's time to publish! Canva lets you choose your domain, optimize for search engines, and publish your website in just one click. Whether it's a portfolio or a business site that you want to launch, Canva simplifies the process for you. 

With Canva's all-inclusive platform, creating a stunning and functional website has never been easier.

Canva Website Builder Review: Pricing and Plans

There are four tiers with different pricing options: Canva Free, Canva Pro, Canva Teams, and Canva Enterprise. The plans are meant to serve various needs, from professionals looking for free tools to organizations with more advanced branding, security, and support requirements. 

Canva’s pricing ensures an option for everyone, no matter how narrow or broad their needs may be. Below is a comparison of each of the tiers to help you identify which one suits you best:

1. Canva Free

The free plan can be great for beginners and anyone willing to try simple web page design. The features include:

• Easy drag-and-drop editor.
• Access to more than 1 million templates besides 3 million+ stock photos and graphics
• AI-generated writing and design features
• 5 GB cloud storage
• Ability to print and deliver designs.

This is one of the plans that offers the user the most basic features. It is, therefore, suitable for personal projects or simple website needs.

2. Canva Pro

With the Pro plan for one user, you will get access to extra professional features, including:

• Unlimited premium templates
• Free access to millions of photos, videos, graphics, and audio
• Brand Kits for managing all your brand assets
• One-click background removal and resizing tools
• 20+ AI tools, including Magic Write, for writing assistance
• 1 TB of cloud storage and planning and scheduling of social content.

This plan is ideal for freelancers, small business owners, or anyone aspiring to increase their outreach through more professional designing tools.

3. Canva Teams

Canva Teams is designed for businesses and teams that need collaborative tools:

• Brand scaling and asset centralization to create brand consistency.
• Real-time collaboration with other team members and role-based permissions.
• AI copy generation tools.
• Team reports and insights about productivity.
• Access to AI Admin Controls and SSO (Single Sign-On) support.

This plan is for teams with an interest in uniform branding and cross-departmental communications.

4. Canva Enterprise

For bigger businesses, the Canva Enterprise plan provides a customized solution with quotations available on request. This package features:

• Central management of many teams and sophisticated content control capabilities.
• Customized access permissions and design approval workflows.
• Customized customer support with varied service options.

This includes advanced security features such as IP indemnity and SCIM integration for license management.

Pros and Cons of Using Canva's Website Builder

Canva's Website Builder is easy to use and quite adaptive for a simple website, but it lacks a few new features for complex projects. Here are the pros and cons of creating a website with Canva website builder: 

Pros

Canva's Website Builder allows creating a simple easy-to-use website without any technical skills. Here are some pros you must know:

1. One-page design

Canva's one-page design feature is appropriate for simple and basic sites such as personal portfolios, landing pages, and small business sites. The content will be well-organized and easy to access.

2. Custom Templates

Canva has hundreds of templates that are easily customizable using different colours, font sizes, and layouts to suit your taste. Thus, you can easily create a unique website without experiencing the complex graphic design process.

3. Responsive Design

Canva automatically makes the new websites responsive to all types of devices possible. This feature maximises user experience and accessibility for users.

4. Brand Kit for Pro Users

Canva Pro lets you add a brand kit, which includes storage of logos colour palettes, and fonts that will keep your designs consistent across different projects, including your website.

5. Basic Analytics

Using Canva Pro's traffic insights will help you better understand visitor behaviour. This will be crucial for increasing user interaction and customizing your content.

6. Easy Hyperlink Integration

Adding hyperlinks to the texts and images in Canva is quite simple. Visitors will be directed to social media, resources, or other sites, enhancing user navigation.

7. Option for a Custom Domain

You can attach a custom domain to Canva, making your site look professional. This feature allows you to customize your site URL according to your brand.

Cons

Although Canva's website builder is simple to use, it has significant limitations that affect the functionality and customization of your website. Here are its main cons:

1. Multi-Page Design Not Supported

Canva only supports basic one-page websites, which can be constraining if the website is complex. Although one can create a link to several one-page designs, this solution isn't seamless and doesn't have the fluent characteristic of traditional multi-page navigation.

2. Limited Customization (No Coding)

There is no custom coding option. Unlike some of its competitors, you can't embed HTML, CSS, or JavaScript in the workflow for much deeper customization. This limits design flexibility and won't appeal to those who want perfect accuracy and coded fine-tuning.

3. Doesn't Offer SEO Functionalities

Canva's Website Builder does not offer SEO optimization features. Applying it individually is difficult and adds additional features like advanced SEO plugins or options that website builders provide.

Who Should Use Canva Website Builder?

The Canva website builder is perfect for professionals and small teams looking for an easy, faster way to create attractive websites. It has no small business-level website features, but it is more suited for the following:

• Internal Team Websites: Set up a website to facilitate quick links, tutorials, or even important updates within your team, encouraging better communication and cooperation.
• Client Onboarding: Create a dynamic document that supplies new clients with relevant information, schedules, and guidelines in an advanced professional format.
• Portfolios or Resumes: Showcase your skills and experiences on an interactive and eye-catching portfolio or resume.
• Classroom Updates: Teachers can establish secure websites that enable parents to keep track of class activities while prioritizing online safety for children.

While Canva has strengths in simplicity and design, it is limited in embedding codes, SEO, video integration, and blogging for every need.

Neo: An Affordable Alternative to Canva Website Builder

Neo is an incredibly useful web builder with cutting-edge marketing tools and a user-friendly interface. It is ideal if you want to replace Canva because it offers a wide range of customization options and eCommerce features that provide a seamless website-building experience. Neo provides an easy and effective approach to building a website for your small business. Let’s look at some of the popular features of Neo’s website builder:

• Integrated with Email Forms: Email-integrated forms allow you to receive consumer inquiries and quote requests straight into your mailbox.
• Add Social Media Handles: Your website should include links to your social media accounts, which can increase brand awareness.
• Simple Procedure for Creating a Website: In three simple steps, choose a theme, add content, and publish to create your website.
• Edit Website After Launching: Customize your one-page website even after it’s live with Neo's easy-to-use platform.

Comparison Table Between Neo and Canva Website Builder

Let’s look at the comparison between both website-building solutions, which will help you understand better:

Wrapping Up

Canva Website Builder is intuitive and user-friendly for beginners and small businesses who want to build a professional website quickly. It provides design flexibility, along with a huge library of templates and AI-powered tools to make website creation easy and efficient. However, it has limitations regarding the lack of multi-page support and SEO functionality. It is suitable for simple websites, but users looking to create high-end content will find it relatively lean. If there is a need to do something more extensive and customizable, then alternatives like Neo will be worth exploring.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Is Canva Website Builder free to use?

Yes, Canva offers a free plan that includes basic features like templates and design tools. However, advanced features like premium templates and custom domains are available through paid plans.

2. Can I add eCommerce features to my Canva website?

Currently, Canva Website Builder does not offer eCommerce features; thus, it is best suited for simple sites.

3. How does Neo compare to Canva in website building?

Neo offers advanced customization and scalability, while Canva is focused purely on a quick template-based approach. This makes Neo ideal for highly customized websites and Canva best suited for simple, visually driven sites or landing pages.